My baby hates his cot. What should I do?

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If your baby starts wailing as soon as it's bedtime, you may assume that he hates his cot. But it's far more likely that he just doesn't want to go there to sleep on his own.

Your baby may be used to being fed or rocked to sleep in his Moses basket or carrycot. Once you put your baby in a cot, he has to adjust to a whole new way of falling asleep, and that's what causes the upset. So before you make this drastic change to his bedtime, work with your baby to make his cot a place where he wants to be.

Try to let him have at least one daytime nap in his cot. You can do this by putting some of his favourite toys in the cot during the day when he isn't sleepy. Make a game out of reaching in and getting them out. Then step it up to putting him down in the cot to get the toy. Your baby will come to think of the cot as a pleasant place to be.

When you see your baby drifting off during a feed, end his meal and finish his bedtime routine before laying him down while he's drowsy but not asleep. Once he's mastered the ability to self-soothe, you're well on your way to peaceful nights.

Last reviewed: May 2012

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Comments

I do feel that there is a lot of pressure and emphasis on allowing your baby to 'self soothing ' , which is a polite way of saying, 'crying themselves to sleep '. We carry our babies for 9 months, then hold them, nurture them and feed them and before they are even sitting up supporting themselves we are encouraged to leave them alone to 'self soothe'! I had a baby to love and hold and I am disgusted by articles like this. I have yet to meet an adult who cannot sleep unless they are rocked or fed! Our babies will soothe themselves happily, without tears or stress, when they are ready.

These "sleep guides" wind me right up! It doesn't matter how you get your baby to sleep as long as you're both getting some! If you're happy with whys you currently do there's no reason to change it just because some article says so. YOU are you baby's personal expert, not someone who's never met him/her. They will fall asleep on their own when they are ready to. Quite why we are so keen to push our babies away before they are ready in this country I'll never know.

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